When I got this promo in my hands the name WHEELRUNNER reminded me the excellent JON OLIVA'S PAIN concerts back in the end of 2004. In one of the Athenian shows (the other one was a full acoustic one) WHEELRUNNER had the privilege to be the opening act. I also remember that the 'mountain king' (a.k.a. Jon Oliva) showed his support to this band saying some nice words (don't ask to remember what exactly) about them making this release most interesting. Apart from that day, I never heard of this Greek act again. The internet research filled this info-gap informing me that the Greek band had released three demos and that Bloodpaint is the debut full length under the record deal with Emotion Art Music Ltd.
Although, I am not good in predicting the music genre from the cover-art, this time I was more than sure that classic Hard Rock would be the main subject Bloodpaint. Evidently, Proof Of Love was the actual 'proof' of my hunch; old school dirty sounding rhythm guitars and high pitched vocals are the main elements that set the record straight about the musical whereabouts of the Greek band. Things got a little bit heavier in the WHITESNAKE groove of Snakebite that gets you even deeper in the old school influences. The foot tapping rhythm will get you in the Hard Rock mood introducing some American based influences that make the result even more appealing. The double guitar harmonies during the riff break and the clean guitar arpeggios quickly became addictive making me hum the melody from the very first CD spin.
Songs like On Fire, Rockstar, Made Of Sin And Pleasure or Natural Born Rocker carry the fitting attitude and dirty atmosphere revealing influences from the early MOTLEY CRUE, the heart 'killing' FIREHOUSE and some AOR bands that I am not familiar to. After 'digging' more into WHEELRUNNER's music I discovered some nice almost Stoner finishing touches mainly in the sold rhythm groove of Streetchild and the main riff of In Cold Blood. A Walk Through The Rain is a nice GUNS 'N' ROSES ballad where Mike lowers his vocal pitch a little bit proving that he has a pretty good voice that (thank Satan) has nothing to do with the classic pronunciation sickness of the majority of the Greek singers.
To warp this one up I can surely say that I enjoyed listening Bloodpaint and made me feel a little bit better about the 'still waters' situation in the Greek Metal scene. Although there are some very good underground Greek bands things get very rare when it comes to a proper album release and of course the adequate promotion; but this is another story...
So, even though WHEELRUNNER do not claim originality laurels they have put together a very good debut that surely raises some expectations for their next move. I think Oliva was not supportive by mistake but he had seen something in these boys... Pay a visit to their MySpace page to find/listen more about them.

Proof Of Love